


In Sickness and in Health

by writingdetritus



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Dumb dwarves being adorbs, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingdetritus/pseuds/writingdetritus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin and Dís are sick, Kíli and Fíli decide they can take care of the two adult dwarves by themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Sickness and in Health

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt requested by niaswish
> 
> (Headcanons ahoy!): Thorin is still living with them (he hasn’t moved above his forge). Fíli and Kíli are like... 20-25, so really young in dwarf terms. They are both idiots. Thorin and Dís think they are idiots. All is good, nothing hurts.

Dís coughed into her sleeve, hunching her shoulders as the cough penetrated deep into her chest. Fíli noticed first that his mother was coming down with something and his bounded forward, his hand resting on her back.

“Mother, are you alright?” He asked, and he could feel his brother’s brown eyes turn quickly from the arrow head to their backs.

“Just the winter chills,” Dís replied, straightening and smiling at her son. Fíli eyed his mother with suspicion, and then turned to his brother. Their mother didn’t just get ‘the winter chills’. She was one of the most strong willed dwarves they had seen, besides their uncle Thorin.

Dís ignored her son’s glances at her and at each other, instead busying herself with the meal she was preparing. Thorin hadn’t returned from the forge yet, but he would return any moment, and she wanted a warm dinner waiting for him. Dís coughed again, a chill running up her spine.

About ten minutes later, Thorin walked in. Instead of his usual slamming of the door, and the clattering of his metals on the wood floor, he entered almost silently, only sighing heavily as he fell into the chair beside his nephews. Kíli dropped his arrow to the side, and watched his uncle take off his boots laboriously.

“Are you feeling alright, Uncle?” Kíli asked finally, only to be answered with a ruff grunt, and then a bout of coughing. Fíli and Kíli looked at each other.

~

“Fíli are you being ridiculous, I am not sick!” Dís complained as Fíli dragged his mother up the stairs and into her bedroom.

“Kíli!” Was all Thorin growled as Kíli pushed him up into his room.

Both brothers felt accomplished as they met each other in the hall, leaning against the door so neither of their elders could escape their caring clutches. They grinned at each other. They were the grownups for today.

            “I’ll get hot water,” Fíli declared, dragging his younger down stairs.

            “I’ll finish the dinner Mother was making,” Kíli said. Only, Kíli couldn’t cook and the dinner was hardly ready to be finished.

            Fíli spilled the hot water on the kitchen flagstones, swearing loudly. Kíli added too much salt to the soup. Fíli retrieved more water from the pot over the fire only to discover he had scooped up Kíli’s soup, and Kíli promptly slipped on the water spill yet to be cleaned up.

            They could hear their mother groaning from up the stairs. Obviously her sons had no idea what they were doing. Thorin would tell her later ‘this is what happens from coddling the boys for far too long!’, but right now, neither of them could do much, and so Fíli and Kíli continued on their destructive, yet well intentioned, path to fix their elders.

            Finally when Fíli brought up the hot water and cloths, he went into his mother’s room first and handed her the dampened cloth. She thanked him, her eyebrows arching. Next, to his Uncle’s room. Instead of actually ever making it in however, Fíli was forced to throw down the bowl of water down to keep the door shut from his Uncle’s attempts of ‘escape’ as the dwarf brothers would have called it.

            When Kíli arrived with his soup, he gave a bowl to his mother, who upon trying it, pushed it aside with a weak, ‘very… savory’, while their Uncle gagged and tossed the soup across the room where it hit the wall with a sad splatter. However, neither brother was deterred from the obvious discomfort and disproval of both grownups.

            Kíli decided he needed honey for the tea he was brewing and sent his brother outside to get some. One of the farmers kept a bee hive and harvested the honey every now and again, but the brothers were notorious for stealing it and then denying they had ever been near it, hiding their sticky yet swollen fingers. Fíli had always been the better one at collecting it, but of course, in his hurry he ended up with a few stings, most on his hand, but one right below the eye so the skin swelled and stung and he could no longer see out of his right eye. But it didn’t stop him.

            He returned triumphant with a small jar of honey which Kíli proceeded to pour large amounts into each cup, now black as tar as he had left the leaves brewing the entire time Fíli was out. Fíli managed to hit the table at least twice as now his perception for distance was gone due to the fact that he had lost an eye for a bit.

            When brought before their mother, the tea was set aside carefully without even a sip, but Thorin took a gulp of it only to spit it out and throw the cup at the brothers, who scampered away, laughing yet feeling slightly confused.

            Why had none of their efforts worked? They did as their mother always did when they were sick – warm water, warm soothing foods, sweet honey to calm a sore throat. Ah but there was one more thing.

            Each grabbed their fiddles. Each had only received the instruments about a month before and both were completely awful at it so far. But their mother would sing to them, and so they would sing to their elders.

            It was the last straw for Thorin really. He barged out of his room, coughing into his fist and went to the tavern up the way, leaving a confused and disgruntled Fíli behind. Kíli however successfully made his mother smile, despite the squeaks he made with the strings. But she told him that her head was hurting and that playing was not the best of things for her right now. Of course, she just wanted him to stop.

            The brothers were not extremely satisfied with their work, but it was the best they could do it seemed, so they were happy. They sat by the kitchen fire, laughing at stories and singing songs, sharing a bowl of Kíli’s soup.

            The next day, Dís felt much better after a good night’s sleep. The cold that had hit her the day before really hadn’t been much, so she had healed quickly, despite her sons attempts to help it along.

            Walking into Thorin’s room to see if he was awake or even returned, she found him under his furs, a fever raging in his head. She couldn’t help but smile – it was his own fault for going out in the snow and drinking. He would get better soon enough.

            But Dís laughed out loud when she found her sons in their bed, each with a terrible head cold.

            “Now,” She said, tucking the furs up to their chins. “I get to show you how it is really done.” And she set about to making her family better.

 

**Author's Note:**

> wow I don't think I've ever written something so sweet. I always manage to booby-trap my own brain into writing something depressing.


End file.
